Uncle Gobber's Stories
by WorthWaitingFor
Summary: Years have passed since the days of the dragon war, and now in a time of piece, Gobber has begun to stir up trouble in the younger generation with his stories of trolls and elves and hammered head yaks.
1. Sock Treaty

"If I get at least sixth, maybe that'll make them happy? What do you think, Toothless? Emmy thought it was a nice idea." The little girl smiled proudly as she went over her notes, chicken-scratched ruins drawn on the scraps of paper she'd hoarded. "If we give them a peace offerin', they won't have ta steal no more, right? They can be our friends too, just like the dragons!"

The larger dragon huffed in discontent. The vikings wouldn't ever have allies like the dragons, not to quite the same extreme. The adolescent green terror in her lap however, purred happily, unaware of everything going on around her.

"Okay, maybe not AS gooda friends as the dragons, but friends, right?"

She snuggled against night fury and sighed happily. "Maybe we can have them over for supper sometime? Maybe Gram can make her smoked cod again? But what if they don't like cod, like you don't like eels? I like cod, does everyone?"

Her ramblings were cut off by the sound of the front door squeaking open. "Arnora?"

"Up here!"

She sat up as her mother came up the stairs to the loft. "Why aren't you out with Halla and the others?"

Arnora proudly held up her papers, nearly knocking the disgruntled Emmy out of her lap as she tried to hand them to her mother. "I'm working on this."

"What is it?" she asked, trying to decipher what she could of the 5 year old's writing.

"A peace treaty, to stop 'em from being thieves."

Her mother sat across from her, metal armour clanking against the wood as she did. She hadn't been out from training for fifteen minutes and here Arnora was already coming up with some sort of plan or scheme. "Stop who from being thieves?"

Arnora looked confused. How could she not know? Wasn't it common knowledge? Shouldn't the chief's wife know all these things? "The trolls, of course. I was at the forge this mornin' and Uncle Gobber was talking 'bout the trolls that" she stopped to clear her throat and began to imitate his heavy accent, "steal yer socks in the night ya know, but only da left ones!"

"Uncle Gobber was telling you, was he?" Her mother laughed, ruffling her daughter's white-blonde hair, the half-undone braid falling out even more. "So you're just going to give them socks?"

"Yup! I'm gonna collect some donations from the villagers! I bet they'll have some, and maybe if the trolls become our friends, they can help us! I bet they could rob the berserkers! Then they could take both socks, and what are they gonna do, fight with no socks on? That's be ridiculous, they'd ruin their boots!"

Her mother smiled, much to her daughters confusion. "You're your father's daughter, you know that right?"

In a very matter of fact tone, Arnora reminded, "I'm your daughter too Mama."

"That you are."

Arnora crossed her arms and leaned back against Toothless's side. "You know," she began thoughtfully, "I betcha Daddy's got a bunch of left socks, he does only need the right ones!" She jumped up, the terror squealing as she was thrown from her spot. "Is he still at the academy?"

"Should be. Why don't you and Emmy go take a look?"

The little girl scoped up the terror, setting her ontop of her already messy hair. "Alrighty! We'll be back by supper! And then I'm gonna find the trolls!"

She scampered out of the house faster than once thought possible, crumpled papers clutched protectively in her little hands and the terror clinging on for dear life.

Toothless, now happily relieved of his "babysitting" duties, jumped to his feet and stretched out his back. Her turned to his rider's wife eagerly, shaking as if he'd been trapped in the house for days, rather than an hour or two.

"Well, go on, I'm sure he's going to want to go flying as soon as he's done with her peace treaty!"

Didn't have to ask him twice.

"Wait, Toothless!" she called from the doorway.

The dragon turned around, wings drooping disappointedly.

"Keep an eye on her till she gets there? Keep her from somehow hurting herself until she gets there?"

The night fury huffed, she had to give him the most impossible task she could think of?

"At least try?"

He nodded before bolting off to catch up.

"And now," she sighed, "I should probably go see "Uncle Gobber about those stories of his. C'mon Stormfly!"


	2. Ghost on the Cliff

**So these oneshots don't particularly follow a direct story line, and are just set randomly throughout. This particular one takes place about a year and a half after the first. I really hope you enjoy this, and if you have any suggestions or questions or anything, shoot me off a message or leave a comment! Also thank you so much to the five wonderful users that commented, I was so glad to hear from you all! Enjoy!:)**

"They'll lay eggs in your brain, ya know, those kinda spiders. Crawl right up in your ear. That's what I heard anyway, Mr. Gibguts said that he say it happen to Miss Sia when they were kids, thats why she's so dumb," the red-haired child announced, peering over the wooden hayloft at the silk webs that swung from either side. The girl, Halla, was the eldest of the three, just short of her seventh birthday, and already more trouble than anyone could keep her out of. A wooden sword dangled from her fingers over the loft as she stared down below. You'd be squished if you fell, she'd convinced herself.  
"Halla, yer a liar! They ain't gonna lay eggs in yer brain! They lay 'em in yer braids! That's what Bergy told Nora! That's why yer sis was screaming and wouldn't let yer mama braid it th'other day," the brunette next to her, no more than a baby really, insisted. Freya, the youngest child in the village, popped up onto her knees, her little fists curling into balls.

"I'm not a liar, and Arnora's just a big baby, ya know, last week she saw Toothless's tail moving before she saw 'um and thought it was a ghost and started screamin'."

The gangly blond on the opposite side stood up and without a moment to think of fear, leaped across the gap from the loft to the rafters. She tossed her mismatched tangled braids over her shoulder, by some miracle not even wobbling on the beam."So she's a'scared'a ghost, huh? We should go find one and make it haunt'er! Get it ta scare her outta tattlin' on us again!"

Halla sighed as she moved to let her feet dangled over the edge. "Really Eldrid? There are three things wrong with that. One, you're gonna fall and smash your head and I'm gonna laugh about it if you keep standin' there. Two, do either of you have any idea how much trouble we'd all get in to for pranking that little princess? And she's my twin, we're like, connected, you scare her, and I'll get some sort of aftermath from it! And besides, Freya, you and me are still in trouble for that worm in her bag!" She hadn't noticed her arms and hands moving wildly as if speaking all their own. "And three, there ain't no such thing as ghosts."

"Says who?" Eldrid retorted.

"My Daddy."

"And yer daddy knows everythin' does he? Trains an night fury and knows all 'bout ghost?"

"Yes."

"S'not true."

Freya giggled to herself. "Ellie just said snot!"

"He said I that couldn't set a tree on fire usin' broke glass, for science, might I add, and guess what? I did! And he said I couldn't sneak a gronkle egg in the great hall and wait fer people, but it's possible, I did it!"

"Has nobody ever told ya the difference between 'You literally can't do it' and 'you aren't allowed to do it'?"

Who was she kidding, no one ever punished Eldrid, she never listened to her dad, and her mom was too encouraging of the behavior. A slap on the wrist, a finger waggle at the worst, and she'd be off again to cause more trouble. Halla cringed at the thought of the pyromaniac, only three years from now, having her own dragon to train. Arnora wouldn't ever have to worry about running a village, there wouldn't be one left decades later if Eldrid and her dream Monstrous Nightmare were set loose.

"Does it matter?" she asked lamely, her weight shifting to her opposite leg, her bony hands on her hips.

"Kinda. And even if it didn't, there still ain't no such things as ghost. They're just made up to scare kids like you into bein' nice to their elders so they don't haunt ya."

"Are too ghost! And I'll prove it!" Eldrid insisted, stamping her foot for emphasis, the wooden beam shaking beneath her.

"How?"

"I'll ask the most wisest person we know!"

"UNCLE GOBBER! Come tell Eldrid that she's an idiot!"

The aging man bumbled across the smithery, the swords he'd be sharping that day abandoned on the table next to him. "Well she is just like 'er mother—"

"Hey!"

"She thinks that there's such thing as ghost," Halla explained with disgust, "But my daddy said there's not, and Eldrid's a liar anyw—"

"I'm not a liar!" The blond snapped as she roughly yanked on her friend's braid. "You're a liar!"

"OW!"

"Ow what? The ghost did it."

"There ain't no such thing as ghost!"

The old blacksmith laughed heartily as he pushed the girls apart. "Eh now, e course there's ghost out there, I've seen 'em, haunting' int eh evenin's!" he stated proudly, "Up there on Freefall Cliff—"

A tiny voice echoed from the workshop in the back, "Uncle Gobber, if Mama finds out you're telling those girls stories again—"

"I'm not tellin' stories, they're true, all true I tell ye," he insisted, his attention to the tiny girl slipping out of the workshop, "Go ask 'iccup 'bout that Bone Napper, 'e'll tell ya it's real!"

Freya peeped out from behind the older girls, "But m'daddy said you almost gotted him eated by da dragon."

"Ya use a kid as bait just once and—" he shook his head, "but it was true, eh? I was right, the bonenapp—"

"Didn't you throw in something' 'bout a hammerhead yak?" Arnora asked as she gathered some of smaller knives and hatchets Gobber had since abandoned.

"Eh, it's just a l'il, er, embellishment— But there's ghost up there on Freefall, I'm telling' ya, when we were kids, Alvin took a bottle and caught one, scared poor Anya Hofferson so much she didn't come outta 'er room fer days!"

"Gram said you made that up too—"

"Don't ye have work to do lass?"

Arnora raised an eye brow. "Uncle Gobber, I'm a apprentice six. Daddy says I need supervision."

"Aye, nah ye don't yer dad never did—"

"It's not like your busy, Halla ran off."

"C'mon! We're catchin' us a ghost!"

"There—"

"Ain't no such thing as ghost, I know I know, and you're gonna eat them words!"

The sun began to duck behind the island, villages were finishing up their evening chores, and once again the chief was found to resume his role as-

"Daddy!"

Yes, that.

Arnora had dropped the knife she'd been working on, landing in the soft thump on the table, and ran towards the door. "Come look, come look! It's almost done, I spent all my free time on it when Uncle Gobber wasn't leavin' me with his work!" She tugged at his hand, pulling him to her little workstation near the back wall. "I sharpened it, and I did all the engravings, and I made the hilt myself, but Uncle Gobber had to make the blade, it's too hot for me to do."

She had him sit at her bench, which was far too small for him to fit comfortably his, his metal foot catching between the legs of the table and bench. She snuggled into what little space she could find as she proudly showed off her handiwork.

"Uncle Gobber says I'll be as good as you once I get a l'il bigger." She smiled at the idea, her little hands playing with the now finished weapon.

"Did he know?" he teased, taking the knife with one hand, poking the little girl in the side with the other, forcing out giggles and a "Daddy, cut it out!"

"He says if I work hard, I could be better. 'M already better than Halla, she only ever comes here to make a mess ya know. Betcha she's making one now, her and that Eldrid. Mama says them two are gonna be nothin' but trouble."

And then it clicked. "Speaking of Halla," he paused, not wanting to hear the answer to the unasked question, "where is she? Haven't seen her all day."

Arnora slid out of his lap and sat on the table. "I'm not supposed ta say, she'll call me a tattletale again-"

"Nori-"

She smirked, "But she's gonna say that anyway. Her and Eldrid went up to Freefall cliff looking' for ghost to put in a bottle."

She didn't have to say anymore.

"Halla, I'm too heavy, yer gonna have ta climb up ta it!"

The ginger haired girl bit her lip. They'd found one, a glowing blue sphere, a ghost that wanted to be their friend, Eldrid had insisted. It was actually really, who knew? Even though she had been proven wrong, in any other situation she would have still continued in denial, but Eldrid had been right, that blue ball had to be a ghost, what else could it be?

Freya rocked back and forth on her heels nervously, her hands at her mouth as she started to bite her nails. "Halla it'th dangerous! We found da ghost, ya don't need to scare ya sister!"

Halla shifted her weight, her hands on her hips as she stared thoughtfully. "I'm pretty fast, but I dunno El, that there tree'll snap before I can crawl back and we ain't got a dragon to catch me."

The tree in question leaned cautiously over the cliff, even the slightest shift in weight could send it down into the ocean below. The older kids, the youngest dragon riders would play chicken, working closer and closer to the tree without knocking it over with their dragon's wings. Gustav Larsen had come to school the next day bragging that he'd be the first rider to actually touch it, standing on Fanghook's head, but she and most of the eldest class hadn't believed him, no one had been there to back it up.

Eldrid scoffed. "I thought you were the bravest girl on Berk!"

Did she really go there? "I AM the bravest kid on Berk! But I ain't stupid, I ain't gonna be able to get up there."

"Chicken."

"I'm not a chicken!"

Halla wondered if she could punch that smirk of Eldrid's face. The blonde held her arms like chicken wings as she began to "_bwak bwak bwak_," kicking the dirt and pecking her head.

"It's not gonna work—"

"I betcha the other kids woulda done it. Ain't no one gonna let you be academy president when ya get big if yer too scared ta climb a tree. Just sayin' Hallie."

And that had done it. "Oh fine! But if I get smushed, it's your fault!"

And, rather stupidly, the girl snatched the bottle from her friend. She surveyed the tree, finding the branch closest to her to pull herself up onto it. First step, down. She was still just above the ground, but as she climbed each branch, she drew closer to the edge, one branch, two branches, three branches past the cliff. Almost there, so close—

_Crack_.

She'd been caught, somehow, she'd been caught, but some sweet, wonderful fortune she'd been caught by… A leather clad rider perched on top a night fury.

Odin's beard was she ever in trouble.


End file.
